Volcanic Winter May Have Paved The Way To The Demise Of Dinosaurs

Climate change triggered by massive volcanic eruptions may have ultimately set the stage for the dinosaur extinction, challenging the traditional narrative that a meteorite alone delivered the final blow to the ancient giants.

Since the discovery of a 65-million-year-old impact crater below the Gulf of Mexico, researchers have debated whether contemporary massive volcanic eruptions or the impact of the asteroid alone is most responsible for the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs.

The Deccan Traps form a huge, rugged plateau in Western India. They formed when a blob of molten mantle material erupted to the surface, feeding widespread volcanism for at least one million years. In some parts of the Deccan Traps, the volcanic layers are more than two kilometers (1.2 miles) thick, making this the second-largest volcanic eruption ever on land.

To answer whether volcanism had a role in the demise of the dinosaurs, a new study looked at the environmental impact of the Deccan Traps eruptions in the 200,000 years before the end of the Cretaceous.

The international team of researchers was able to reconstruct how much volcanic sulfur and fluorine were released by looking at elemental traces trapped in minerals as they formed in the cooling lava.

Remarkably, the researchers found the sulfur release could have triggered a global drop in temperature around the world—a phenomenon known as a volcanic winter—before the asteroid hit Earth.

“Our research demonstrates that climatic conditions were almost certainly unstable, with repeated volcanic winters that could have lasted decades, prior to the extinction of the dinosaurs. This instability would have made life difficult for all plants and animals and set the stage for the dinosaur extinction event. Thus our work helps explain this significant extinction event that led to the rise of mammals and the evolution of our species,” said Prof. Don Baker, coauthor of the study.

A study published in 2021 also found that the Deccan Traps could have released enough carbon-dioxide to cause a runaway greenhouse effect. In this scenario, the volcanic winter was followed by global warming, adding to the environmental stress. The asteroid impact was just the last straw that broke the dinosaur’s back.

The study “Recurring volcanic winters during the latest Cretaceous: Sulfur and fluorine budgets of Deccan Traps lavas” was published in the journal Science Advances (2023). Additional material and interviews provided by Keila DePape for McGill University.

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